All The King's Men
by astral-angel
Summary: An unsub with an unknown connection to Emily draws the web tighter around the BAU team, leaving chaos in his wake. Prentiss-centric, eventual Prentiss/Hotch, J.J/Rossi.


**Title:** All The King's Men  
**Characters/Parings:** Emily Prentiss, eventual Hotch/Prentiss, J.J/Rossi, BAU team  
**Prompt:** round 12 at **prompt_in_a_box**: prompt 8 - _dear shepherd, now I find thy saw of might: 'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?' _- William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 3.5  
**Word Count:** 1,788 words.  
**Rating:** Teen/FR13+ for language, violence,  
**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to Jeff Davis, CBS, et al. I claim no ownership of recognisable characters, although various original characters will show up along the way. No money is being made off this project and no copyright infringement is intended.  
**Summary:** An unsub with an unknown connection to Emily draws the web tighter around the BAU team, leaving chaos in his wake.  
**Spoilers:** All episodes up 'till early Season 4, specifically spoils for _2.20 - Honour Among Thieves_ and _3.02 - In Birth and Death_ .  
**Author's Notes:** This is my first attempt at a CM fic, so constructive crit is greatly loved.

_i would not be thy executioner: i fly thee, for i would not injure thee. thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye: tis pretty, sure, and very probable, that eyes -- that are the frail'st and softest things. who shut their coward gates on atomies, -- should be called tyrants, butchers, murderers. now i do frown on thee with all my heart; and if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee. _  
**- phebe to silvius, william shakespeare, as you like it, act three, scene five.**

xx--xx

_  
The house was too quiet._

_Emily's grip tightened on her gun, her eyes flat and wary. Her heart thudded in her chest, the staccato beat almost deafening. She moved across the room, her boots silent on the thick carpet. Her vest sat heavily on her torso, uncomfortably pressing against her breasts as it normally did. She passed into the next room, stopping short as she noticed the furnishings._

_She'd been here before._

_Milwaukee – Joe Smith. Her breath hitched, catching. Joe Smith was dead, had been for months. Emily bit her lip, eyeing the door in front of her. It led down to the basement – tools hooked on the walls and a long beam in the centre. A chill crept up her spine. Dirt floors and a little boy holding her gun, the hard clench of fingers around her arm._

_Shaking her head, Emily strode to the door, opening it quickly and quietly. She could barely make out the steps in the dark, the light from the moon casting dark shadows into the room. Fuck. Her breath hitched again as she jumped the last two steps, eyes trained on the limp form tied to the beam. Hair that might have been a dirty blond colour hung around her face in limp strands, blood spilling from her split lip. Emily stepped forward, her free hand reaching to brush the woman's hair out of her face._

_"Hello Emily."_

_Startled, Emily snatched her hand away, her eyes wide. The woman smiled at her, a cruel mockery of a smile on her face. "Who – who are you?" Emily cleared her throat, her gun trained on the woman's chest._

_"Don't you know me Emily?" The woman's gaze hardened. "Don't you remember me? Don't I deserve to be remembered by you?"_

_"'I'm sorry, I don't know who you are." Emily shifted uncomfortably, sympathy welling in her stomach._

_"My name is Claire Thompson. I am 33 years old and I've been married to my husband for eight. I have a two year old daughter – her name is Emily too – and I'm never going to see her again. I've been craving peanut butter with chocolate milk lately, so I think I'm pregnant again. Two days ago, I tried to help a little boy find his father."_

_"Oh god..." The words left Emily's mouth in a whisper. They hadn't found her in time, hadn't known where to look. Her stomach clenched, nausea settling over her skin._

_"God didn't help me Emily. And neither did you. I screamed and I cried and I fought and I tried to get away, but I'm still dead, Emily." Claire licked her lips, blood streaking her pale skin. "He tied me up and he kissed me and he touched me and he made me play mommy to his little boy and he cut my heart out and all I could do was beg and pray but nobody listened and I'm still deaddeaddeaddead." Claire's shirt fell open, revealing the gaping hole in her chest cavity._

_Emily shuddered, her gun falling from nerveless fingers, clattering on the concrete floor. She shivered in the cold air of the meat locker and spun around, gagging at the smell of decaying meat and blood. Natalya Chernus, with her short choppy hair and strong jaw stared up at her, brown eyes misted with death._

_Emily looked down at her, confusion etched into her features. What the hell was going on? Natalya blinked slowly, the action incongruous with the gaping hole in her forehead._

_"We could have been friends, I think." Natalya's voice, still accented broke the silence._

_"Friends?" Emily's lips curled into a mocking smile. "What makes you think we could have been friends Natalya? You hurt people, your own father, for god's sake."_

_Natalya smirked. "Tell me Emily, fifteen years ago, if you'd had the chance to hurt your mother, would you not have taken it?" She pulled herself off the floor, snatching the gun on her way and idly worrying at the bullet hole in her forehead. "You spent close to three months in Russia, did you not?"_

_"How do you know that?"_

_"I know more about you then you'd think, Emily." Natalya smiled slowly. "How is that, from an entire team of FBI profilers, not one of you figured out that I was playing you?"_

_"We did figure it out."_

_"Not soon enough – but that's just it, isn't it? You'll never be good enough, smart enough."_

_Emily flushed. "That's a lie."_

_"Is it? Your own team doesn't trust you, Emily. Everyone knows that Strauss put you in the BAU so that you could spy for her."_

_"I didn't tell her anything!" Emily shot back, fighting the feeling of unease. "Hotch knows that I didn't, that I wouldn't."_

_"Do the others?" Natalya smirked again, her eyes cold. "Face it Emily, to them you'll always be the outsider."  
The gun in her hand was suddenly pointed at Emily, who stepped back, eyes wide. "Do you think anyone would notice, Emily? If I pulled this trigger, put a bullet in your head to match mine?"_

_"You're dead." Emily kept a wary eye on her gun. "You're dead, and that means that this isn't real."_

_"Are you sure about that Emily?" Natalya smiled, pulling the trigger._

_Emily screamed._

xx--xx

The silence is a heavy thing – tangible, pressing down on her skin until she can taste the oppressiveness on her tongue. Emily blinks, turns her head – her bangs are sitting on her eyebrows, the feather light touch an itch she can't get rid of. _Why had she cut her hair?_ The thought is as much like as quicksilver as her dream had been – there one second, gone the next – less than that, even. She shifts, her bare thighs catching on the sheets (Egyptian cotton with an insanely high thread count) – she's a tactile person and she'd fallen in love the first time she'd used them. Her skin feels hot, flushed – like her blood is boiling – rising to the surface in a slow burn. She bites her lip, stares up at the ceiling – the realtor had mentioned something about eggshell white and organza trim – she's mentioned it to Penelope, once, when they'd been halfway to trashed. Penelope had snickered, a wedding dress had been brought up and from there the conversation had taken a decidedly lewd turn.

The remnants of that night linger in her apartment – giggle fits after they'd convinced Jaje to prank call Reid, moans of pain after the hangovers had kicked in – Emily smiles, almost. They haven't spent much time together outside of work lately – JJ has LaMontagne, Penelope has Kevin and Emily has ... well, herself. _God, that's pitiful._ She hasn't had a date in months – Penelope thinks that she needs to get laid – Emily so agrees. Besides, there's only so much Emily can take and listening to her bubbly friend gush about shower sex is just a hairsbreadth over that line. Though, at least she can say that Rossi's never caught her in a compromising position.

She twists, trying to catch sight of her alarm clock. The neon glow tells her that she's had two hours of sleep – it's more than she usually gets lately, so she figures at least something good came out of this. Emily stretches, feeling lethargy seep into her bones and manages to get herself tangled in the sheets. She sighs – her phone rings, breaking the silence with Cindy Lauper and high pitched warbling. Her eyebrow lifts – maybe letting Penelope play with her phone hadn't been the best of ideas. She picks up as the song reaches its crescendo – _oh girls, they just wanna have fun_ – and perks up. _There's a case._

"Agent Prentiss."

"Did you find her?"

She smothers a yawn, before staring at her phone. The husky voice clearly doesn't belong to J.J.

"Hotch?" Emily shoots off the bed, hurriedly pulling on a pair of pants. She can't talk to Hotch in her panties - even if he can't see her, _she'll know_. Eventually Penelope will drag it out of her and that's a conversation she really doesn't want to get into.

"Do I sound like Aaron Hotchner, Emily?" He laughs in her ear as she stills, her hand tightening around the phone.

"Who is this?" Her voice sounds sharp to her own ears, the blurred edges of sleep gone.

"Have you found her yet Emily?"

"Who's her? Who are you?" Her mind kicks into gear, committing the conversation to memory. He knows her name, he knows who her boss is - this isn't a prank call and she's getting a very bad feeling about this.

He laughs again, softly, and when he speaks, his voice has a lilting quality. "Shall I give you a clue, then, Agent Prentiss?"

"This isn't funny." His laugh grates on her nerves because it sends a shiver down her spine. "Who are you?"

"Do you have a pen, Emily? You wouldn't want to miss this now, would you?"

She bits her lip, thinking. Does the voice sound familiar?

"Get the pen, Emily. This is your only chance."

Seconds later, pen in hand, she told him to continue, mentally cataloguing his nuances.

"No sooner met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but they loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed; no sooner sighed; but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy," he drawls out and she can hear the smirk in his voice. He repeats himself, then has her read it back to him. "You have five days to find her, because I like being nice, Emily. Five days."

"Five days for - " Emily scowls at the dial tone that follows the click and shifts uncomfortably. _Fuck._ She has not had enough sleep to deal with this. She hits the speed dial on her phone, waits for J.J. to pick up.

"We have a problem."

_end part one_


End file.
